I love those posts from the walleye guys where they talk about catching channel cats or a flathead. I’m all over those posts trying to figure out where and when and how they caught those cats. I decided that if you walleye guys can catch cats dragging baits I need to give that a go too. I just need to substitute some good cut bait to attract channels instead of leeches or crawlers.
I’ve had good luck drifting for channels when the conditions are right but I wanted more and better boat control.
I’ve picked up 2 nice channels in the last week trolling upstream tapping a 3-Way Rig along a breakline. One of them was a beautiful 33″ fish which is a good fish on the St Croix. It is only two fish but I think this may be another tool to pull out of the tool box when the channel cat bite slows down. You can cover some pretty good territory and maybe find some fish.
I was out last night doing a little scouting – I came through a hole and marked some fish so I dropped the trolling motor and worked back upstream using a 3-Way Rig with cut bullhead. I nailed a nice fat 26″ channel within 5 minutes just tap, tap, tapping that 3-Way back up current through the hole.
That was the only fish I got – I worked the hole for about 30 minutes after that but couldn’t pick up another fish. I like that 3-Way Rig because I am holding the rod and I can feel everything on that PowerPro line.
I’m using much stouter gear than you walleye guys. I leave one of my flathead rods that is a very light graphite rod in a heavy action rigged in the boat with a 3-Way so I can just grab it and bait it and get it in the water quickly.
This is more of a trolling technique but it seems to work as effectively as the drifting. I was moving upstream at about .5 mph which was almost a slow crawl and my line was almost vertical under the boat. I was in 15 – 19 feet of water with a light current.
I did get hung up in the hole and broke off – that hole was full of debris and cover for those cats. I’ve got some 3/0 weedless Kahle hooks and I may use them next time I am out to see if that cuts down on the snags. I’m using a 1 ounce bell sinker on a 12 inch drop line (the drop line is 8 lb test so if the sinker gets hung up I can just break it off). I pre-tied a bunch of 12″ drop lines and put them on a leader holder so I don’t have to fumble around in the dark trying to tie up a drop line.
I need you walleye guys to keep posting whenever you get a channel cat dragging bait. Just give out general areas and conditions (depth, wind data, time of day, etc) so that I can kind of match that information to where I am fishing.
Those of you that might want to try for cats. Just upsize your bait. I use cut bullhead but if you had some cut sucker that would work good to. When you are at the bait shop pick up a half dozen medium suckers. On the medium suckers just snip off the head and the tail and hook them on a 1/0 to 5/0 hook. Save the heads and use them to. Just take a pliers and crush them a little to get the juices flowing. After you cut up your bait keep it on ice to try and keep it as fresh as possible. The fresh cut bait leaves a good scent trail.
I use Gamakatsu Circle Hooks in 1/0 to 5/0 sizes but any larger hook will work. Your regular walleye gear will work fine but hold on they fight like heck. Loosen your drag and let them fight it out and you won’t have any problems. Who knows – maybe you will join the “Dark Side” and start chasing cats late at night.
